Comments
iAUDIT! - Within days of the November 5 election, Gavin Newsom and other Democratic governors announced plans to “Trump-proof” their states from the president-elect’s more extreme measures. While most of the Democrats’ emphasis is on civil and reproductive rights, immigration, and environmental protection, not much has been mentioned about homelessness policies. Housing First has been the federal government’s official policy over several administrations, including Trump’s first term. What may change in his second term? How might those changes affect state and local government policy? Does California need to “Trump-proof” homelessness programs?
I don’t believe in reading tea leaves, but there are some hints as to what may happen. To begin with, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Scott Turner, has previous experience working for Trump, as executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, a public-private partnership program intended to stimulate economic growth in minority and depressed communities. Unlike some of Trump’s more controversial nominees, Turner has worked within the federal government and does not appear to be ideologically opposed to HUD’s purpose. Nevertheless, we may see significant changes in homelessness programs. Although Housing First has been the policy of choice for three decades, many researchers have conducted studies that find little or no evidence it has been effective, especially in helping people with serious mental illness and substance abuse problems. While its unlikely Housing First will be swept away all at once, given Turner’s market-oriented approach, we may see more flexible and results-oriented homelessness funding policies. Fewer rules would be consistent with Trump’s general distaste for regulations. Of course, any change will depend on support from Trump himself. Given his focus on immigration and deregulation, it may be some time before we see a change of direction at HUD.
Any changes to Housing First will face serious political headwinds. Despite a history of failure, Housing First has been remarkably resilient. It remains California’s official policy for program funding eligibility, and Mayor Bass doubled down on supporting it after the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision. In 2022, Dr. Sam Tsemberis, who developed Housing First in the early 1990’s, insisted that what was really needed was more money and more construction of permanent housing, even though a 2017 economic analysis of permanent supportive housing showed it takes 10 new units to permanently house one person. Critics say Housing First is creating an underclass of people who will be eternally dependent on free housing, and who have little incentive to find the means to support themselves.
Nonpartisan commentators are questioning Housing First’s efficacy. Calmatters, a nonpartisan news service covering state policies, recently published an op-ed concerning Trump-proofing California. The article is critical of state programs in general, and homelessness policies specifically: “And nothing requires a more “ruthless examination of results” than our state’s approach to its homeless population. California must finally put someone in charge of homelessness response to bring alignment and focus on achieving results that get and keep people off the streets”. Given the long history of negative audits from state and local governments, one could hardly accuse the author of being overly critical of homelessness programs.
As I’ve said in previous columns, Housing First’s fatal weakness, at least in the way it is structured by HUD and implemented in California, is that it is entirely process-oriented. Process-oriented policies assume that by following a series of predetermined steps, a program will automatically be successful. Process has a place in any program, but it often becomes a goal unto itself. Since I live near the airport, let’s use a commercial airliner as an example. We’ve all seen movies or documentaries where the pilots go through a lengthy checklist before take-off; this process is meant to ensure the plane is ready for flight and all its systems are working properly. But the process is not the actual flight—that depends on the pilots’ skill and experience. By following the process, the pilots support the goal of a safe flight. But if something goes wrong, the pilot must take corrective action. If, for example, the plane hits unexpected turbulence, the pilot will turn off the autopilot and change course. He or she wouldn’t say “But the checklist says there shouldn’t be a problem”! and refuse to alter the plane’s flight path. When it comes to homelessness programs, HUD, the state, the city, and the county define success as completing processes. That’s why you see performance measures for things like making a client “document ready” rather than the number of people truly housed. There may be a count on the number of shelter beds, but not how many unique people fill them, or for how long. Anything outside the process is unimportant, so nobody measures the effectiveness of Harm Reduction programs, or the services housed clients should be receiving. Even in the face of increasing homelessness and mounting evidence of ineffective programs, leaders refuse to change course.
Housing First supporters say all that’s needed is more money and more housing. In the 2022 article I mentioned previously, Dr. Tsemberis said the main reason it doesn’t work is because cities don’t follow the prescribed processes and haven’t created enough housing or spent enough money on services. In reality, Housing First was created for a homeless population that no longer exists. The early 1990’s predate the flood of methamphetamine and cheap opiates like fentanyl, and the impact of deinstitutionalizing people with mental illness had not yet taken its full toll. What may have worked 30 years ago is no longer relevant, and proponents refuse to adjust to a new reality. They continue to pour money into ineffective programs because they insist homelessness is purely a problem of economics.
Supporters also refuse the recognize the Law of Diminishing Returns. If what Dr. Tsemberis says is true, and we’re not spending enough money on homelessness, at what point does the cost outweigh the gains? In fiscal year 2016-17, LAHSA’s budget was $132 million, and the homeless population was 55,048. The authority’s 2024-25 budget is $875 million, and the 2024 PIT count showed 75,312 unhoused people in LA County. Even if we believe homelessness decreased slightly between 2022 and 2023, the infinitesimal decrease of about 200 people does not justify an almost seven-fold increase in LAHSA’s budget. LAHSA is not the only agency that’s seen huge budget increases; in 2016, the City of Los Angeles’ homelessness budget was about $100 million; now it exceeds $1 billion. Providing housing for all the homeless in LA, even if that number stayed static, would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
What all of this means for homelessness in the second Trump administration remains to be seen, but if “Trump-proofing” means business as usual, then perhaps disrupting the status quo is what is needed.
(Tim Campbell is a resident of Westchester who spent a career in the public service and managed a municipal performance audit program. He focuses on outcomes instead of process.)
